The Mobile Ecosystem... no question that mobile is huge and the opportunity for developers and those porting web apps and services to the mobile environment is massive (just look around at career opportunities posted for mobile developers).
To put in context, an overwhelming 95% of people around the world now own cell phones, according to a new nine-country study by SSI (http://www.lbszone.com/content/view/8155/2/). They also have found that among cell phone owners, 42% currently have smartphones and 58% are planning to make their next cell phone a smartphone. Of interest, iPad, Android and Windows Mobile 7 are now gaining market share in the U.S. and U.K. But mobile isn't simply about the smartphone either as Tablet usage is soaring. Tablet usage is up 84 percent since Q4 2010 and there's no signs of this slowing down. Sales of laptops are dropping off while Tablet use is picking up the slack.
As people continue to become increasingly mobile and strive for constant connectivity, mobile-device habits have shifted from larger devices like laptops to smaller, more portable devices like smartphones and tablets. Tablet usage has nearly doubled in the past year, growing by 84 percent since Q4 2010. Since last quarter, tablets and smartphones are showing relative growth in usage while other devices like netbooks and laptops have remained stable or declined. Tablet usage is up 20 percent, smartphone usage is up 24 percent and by comparison, laptop usage is down 10 percent. (Source: http://www.lbszone.com/content/view/8223/2/)
What this means for developers though is opportunity... lots of it and I have to add that with location being a ubiquitous feature of these mobile devices the demand on location-aware apps and services is huge. Developers need to decide, what kind of apps and services will they create (commercial or consumer centric), which platform(s) to design for, how to reach the customer (web service or application), to design for smartphone(s) and tablet, how to position in app stores, which social networks to integrate with the app, and so on... There's loads of developer resources on the web so to help the developer, here's a listing of just some of the fine dev resources, blogs, toolsets and more to consider when developing or porting your app to a smartphone or Tablet friendly environment.
Image credit www.visionmobile.com
Suggested Developer Resources for Mobile Application Development
ArcGIS resource center and tools for mobile development - Esri has provided a number of SDKs and tools for developers looking at most of the mobile platforms. Create apps for smartphone and Tablets using Esri tools. More specific topic areas are also provided by Esri, for example, this resource for developing for Android http://resources.arcgis.com/content/arcgis-android/about
InfoChimps - Looking for data to use in your mobile apps and mashups?
Developing for Android - A basic starting point for new developers to the Android ecosystem
Android Training - An online orientation to Android training. A number of how to tutorials, code samples, articles, tutorials and more.
Developing location services with Android - add location provisioning to your android apps using classes of the Android location package and Google maps.
Foursquare API and developer resources - If you're mobile app integrates location you may want to add support for foursquare checkin. Here's a dev resource from foursquare
Nokia maps Ovi maps API - you may not think Nokia has huge marketshare in North America, however, on the rest of the planet Nokia is huge! Adding to that, Nokia Maps is a terrific map service and has some awesome opportunities for application developers... don't discount this at all! And see also location APIs and tools from Nokia
Nokia Developer - The massive developer community resource from Nokia, was Forum Nokia with articles, community discussion, docs, tools, downloads and more for those interested in Symbian, S40, Qt and more.
Facebook developer APIs and tools - a comprehensive resource for developers from facebook - be sure to keep tabs on facebook Places and movement they make in location aware services, POI and related matters.
AppHub - a vast developer resource for those interested in creating apps for Windows Phone - a hint... nokia is really watching this space and there's huge opportunity for those creating apps for the new Nokia Windows Phone devices!
Bing Maps developer resources - Bing Maps gives you a rich set of tools to help you create amazing map experiences. Choose from our super fast AJAX Control 7.0, REST Services API, Bing Map App SDK for mash-ups
Mapnik is a Free Toolkit for developing mapping applications - perhaps not for mobile development, however, Mapnik is a fantastic, open resource for anyone looking to start mashing around with maps and map data!
Metaio mobile SDK AR toolset - The metaio Mobile SDK is the only package in the industry allowing developers to use content without prior encryption
HipGeo Developer API - HipGeo's apps use passive and active location collection schemes to record detailed information about a user's location.
Instagram API - With the Instagram API, the goal is to make it easier for developers to create interesting and innovative ways to browse the ever-growing volume of photos posted to Instagram
The HTML5 geolocation API - This article aims to show you what are the things you can do with this new API controlled by web browser client based on wireless geolocation and compare it with the server-side IP geolocation
